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Lake Mungo (2008) [REVIEW]

YES I FUCKING FELL ASLEEP FOR TEN MINUTES OF THIS MOVIE. Just wanted to make sure I got that out of the way before I went any further. Despite missing a few minutes of this movie, I feel as though I can give it an accurate review, because if it was a good ten minutes, maybe it would have kept me awake. With yesterday being 9/11 and all, I figured it was a perfect opportunity to sort my shit out on Netflix and I managed to trim things down to under 100 movies, which made me feel quite accomplished. With so few movies, I started Googling things like “haunted house” and “ghost” movies, because those are what generally creep me out. I stumbled across this movie, which I was surprised to see on Netflix Instant, and even more surprised to see had an average of 4 stars. That’s a fucking lot! Especially for a horror movie that I hadn’t heard of. I decided to take a break from watching Breaking Bad to give this a shot.

Special cameo from that bitch from The Ring.

This film is a fake documentary, a “mockumentary” if you will, about an incident that happened near Lake Mungo in Australia. A family was spending some time there when their daughter went missing in the water. There was absolutely no trace of her, other than a few days later (or something), her body was recovered. Despite the body having decomposed and not having concrete proof of it being the daughter, it was assumed to be her. Obviously the family was bummed and tried to move on, but had some difficulty. The mom tried finding solace in talking with a psychic, the dad tried to keep busy, and the son started getting involved in photography. The son started taking pictures of his backyard once a day, every day, as a personal project. He did this until one day he noticed a figure standing in his backyard, and even though it wasn’t crystal clear, looked just like the daughter. It was some blurry glowing light, it looked like a solid figure. Weird, right? After that, there is footage revealed of what a video camera recorded while left on in the house, and we see another solid figure walk from one room to another that looked just like the daughter.

Ghost? Bigfoot? We may never know…

Thinking the daughter might still be alive, the family starts investigating her friends to see if she had reason to just disappear. This led to some cell phone footage of their daughter at a party, at Lake Mungo, where she is seen to be burying something. When digging up what she has buried, the daughter’s cell phone is recovered. Upon investigating the cell phone, there is footage found from that night. We then see footage of the daughter, presumably alone, exploring a figure she saw near the lake. As the gets closer and closer to the figure, we see then that the figure she sees is what her own decomposing corpse looked like, there’s a brief and seemingly terrifying encounter, and then the footage stops. Days later is when the daughter dies. The family decides that they couldn’t explain the answers that this footage has provided them with, and moves out of their house that held all the memories of their daughter. As the movie ends, we are shown more pictures and footage that has already appeared in the film, but this time we zoom in on different parts and see the figure of the daughter, which most viewers probably hadn’t noticed was there the whole time.

Can you see the ghost in this picture? CAN YOU? How creepy is it when you see it? That’s what I liked, is you had to really search for whether or not you could see what you were seeing. (Hint: she’s in the window)

Okay guys, you got me, you know I always get creeped out by that doppelgänger bullshit. I guess the idea of seeing yourself but it not being yourself just scares the shit out of me. Also the idea that this character saw herself and didn’t think to tell anyone about it seems really creepy. Think of that fact that there are almost 7 billion people on the planet and you realize at least one other person is bound to look just like you. I also really liked the fact that this was shot as an actual documentary, rather than the Blair Witch/Paranormal Activity style of handheld cameras. It was presented as a weird event that just happened to a family that was documented after the fact and once all the dust had settled. I also really enjoyed that the figure they were seeing wasn’t something obscured or vaguely resembled a ghost, but it was obvious that it appeared as a solid figure that had actual weight and mass to it. Granted, I did fall asleep, and there were some slow parts, so it’s not getting the best rating it can, but considering how creeped out I got at the idea of encountering your own rotting corpse and how terrifying that would be, I definitely recommend this movie to any other fans of ghost movies.

I would say the only thing it “suffers” from is the low budget. Not saying that I want this movie to be remade or anything at ALL, just some of the effects in the footage and some of the actors are really the only reason it didn’t get the highest rating. Definitely creepy though, that’s for sure.